Juneteenth Celebration Spreads Across The U.s.

Once Obscure Event Marks End Of Slavery

June 18, 2004|By Julia Moskin The New York Times

On Saturday morning, Joe Kings of Portland, Maine, will be up at dawn to get the fire going. Every year on the third Saturday in June, Kings' barbecued ribs, corn and spicy red beans draw hundreds of Maine residents -- most of them white -- to his celebration of a once-obscure Texas holiday celebrated only by blacks: Juneteenth.

With events including a small rap contest in Anchorage, Alaska, and a huge festival of black heritage in Baltimore, hundreds of thousands of Americans will celebrate Juneteenth, or June 19, the day that slavery in the United States effectively ended. With the arrival of an Army ship in Galveston on June 19, 1865, Texas was the last state to learn that the South had surrendered two months earlier. More than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863, the 250,000 slaves in Texas were free.

Juneteenth, which is traditionally celebrated on the third Saturday in June, began taking root across the country largely because of enthusiastic black "Texpats" like Kings, a retired Army medical administrator who spent 11 years at Fort Hood, Texas. After buying a car repair business in Portland, he held a Juneteenth picnic the first year.

"Even the black people here didn't know about Juneteenth," Kings said. "Now the white ladies come by on the first of June and start asking: `When's Juneteenth?'"

With its lighthearted name and tragicomic origins, Juneteenth appeals to many Americans by celebrating the end of slavery without dwelling on its legacy. Juneteenth, celebrators say, is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday without the grieving.

"When I think of Martin, I can't help but see the dogs and the sticks and the little girls in the church," said Paul Herring, who has organized a Juneteenth celebration in Flint, Mich., for 10 years. "But when I think of Juneteenth, I see an old codger kicking up his heels and running down the road to tell everyone the happy news."

Most gatherings are decidedly upbeat, but the sobering reason for the holiday has also been part of Juneteenth's growth. Dr. Ronald Myers, the leader of a movement to make Juneteenth a national holiday, says June 19 should be a remembrance of the horrors of slavery.

"We never got our apology, so we need this holiday to remind us that we must not forget," said Myers, who spoke Thursday at a Juneteenth event at the Capitol led by Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill.